Comment Re:It was nice while it lasted (Score 3, Informative) 329
Well, not quite. It seems Spotify is available through Europe, but not much outside it (at least, it says it's not available in Australia.)
Comment Re:Many people care about "free" (Score 4, Informative) 329
Perhaps advertising simply does not support Last.FM's licensing deals
Yes, it does. One of the comments there, by the same author of the post, says that the revenue from ads in USA, UK and Germany are enough to pay for the bandwidth and licensing fees they have to pay. Everywhere else, it's not enough and that's why they are charging other countries.
Comment Just a bump in pricing? (Score 1) 329
One thing I couldn't get a straight answer:
Right now, the site subscription is 2.50/month. The blog mentions that the price to keep streaming songs on the radios will be 3.00/month. It seems that, what's happening is that streaming will be available only to subscribers and the subscription price will be bumped 0.50/month.
But heck, I couldn't get a answer, since they seem to be ignoring the whole discussion after a lot of people started complaining about the geographical subscription requirements.
Submission + - Obama's Gift to Gordon Brown fails due to DRM 9
quanticle writes: According to the Daily Telegraph, when Gordon Brown sat down to watch the DVDs that Obama had given him, he found out that they were from the wrong region. Will this be the impetus that finally convinces our government that region coding is detrimental?
Comment Re:Trailer, Really? (Score 1) 444
Also, if you replace the song in the new trailer by the theme of "Beverly Hills 90210", it still looks like the shit they were handing before.
Take a look at this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RciBTtckeXg
It's footage of the old series using the sounds (and music) from the new series. And it looks a lot better than the *current* trailer.
Comment Re:Hmmm... (Score 2, Insightful) 444
Sounds like you never saw ANY Star Trek. It never was about fighting, it always was "diplomacy whenever possible."
How many times Kirk had to discuss with some alien race (well, most of the time, Spock) about our "old, barbarian ways" and how we learnt how to be civilized.
How many times Q called humans "barbarians" to Picard?
Star Trek was always "brains over power", fight only when it really needs.
Comment Re:EVE Mobile? (Score 1) 74
IF you decide to mine. I'm doing the missions this time (second character) and it's far away from boring (weeee! Firing three ships at the same time!)
Microsoft To Open Retail Stores 535
chaz373 writes "CNET reports that Microsoft is going retail. In the 'Beyond Binary' blog Ina Fried reports, 'After years of brushing off the notion, Microsoft said on Thursday that it will open up its own line of retail stores. Without detailing the plans, Microsoft said it has hired David Porter, a 25-year Wal-Mart veteran, to lead the effort. Sources say that Porter's mission will be to develop the company's retail plans and that the effort is likely to start small with just a few locations.'"
Comment It's all about the API (Score 4, Insightful) 177
As someone who worked with the iPhone SDK, I can say that iPhone Nano is not going to happen anytime soon. Reason: There is no layout managers in the SDK so, if you want your button to be in the right side, you have to provide a position in pixels from the left side. If Apple build a smaller version of the screen, about 90% of all AppStore applications would not work properly. Either that or you'd have very small buttons all over the place and it'd be really hard to read anything in the screen ('cause you need to keep same aspect ratio of the "normal" iPhone.)
Bookmark Best iPhone apps: Office and personal productivity Slide: 9 (infoworld.com)
How the City Hurts Your Brain 439
Hugh Pickens writes "The city has always been an engine of intellectual life and the 'concentration of social interactions' is largely responsible for urban creativity and innovation. But now scientists are finding that being in an urban environment impairs our basic mental processes. After spending a few minutes on a crowded city street, the brain is less able to hold things in memory and suffers from reduced self-control. 'The mind is a limited machine,' says psychologist Marc Berman. 'And we're beginning to understand the different ways that a city can exceed those limitations.' Consider everything your brain has to keep track of as you walk down a busy city street. A city is so overstuffed with stimuli that we need to redirect our attention constantly so that we aren't distracted by irrelevant things. This sort of controlled perception — we are telling the mind what to pay attention to — takes energy and effort. Natural settings don't require the same amount of cognitive effort. A study at the University of Michigan found memory performance and attention spans improved by 20 percent after people spent an hour interacting with nature. 'It's not an accident that Central Park is in the middle of Manhattan,' says Berman. 'They needed to put a park there.'"
Comment Re:I hate to be an ass... (Score 1) 479
Your wikifu is weak young one.
And apparently your sense of humor too. I commend his choice from the array of options given by the disambiguation page, which has obviously been his (and your) first stop. He definitely picked the funniest one.
Comment What? No mention of Alanis? (Score 2, Funny) 320
A misuse of the term "ironic" and no one has mentioned Alanis Morissette yet? Where is this world heading to?
RIAA Sues 19-Year-Old Transplant Patient 663
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "Just when you think they've reached rock bottom, it seems the RIAA always finds room to sink a little lower. This time they've sued an innocent, 19-year-old transplant patient, hospitalized with pancreatitis and needing islet cell transplants. Although the young Pittsburgh lady claims that she did not infringe any copyrights, she failed to answer the complaint in time, and a default judgment was taken against her. A Pittsburgh area lawyer has stated that he will represent her pro bono and make a motion to open up the default."
Warner Music Pushing Music Tax For Universities 375
An anonymous reader writes "Warner Music is pitching the idea of a 'music tax' for various top universities. The idea is that students would be free to file share, but the university needs to monitor and track everything, create a pool of money, hand it over to a recording industry entity that promises to distribute the proceeds fairly. In exchange, the university gets a 'covenant not to sue' from the music labels. It's not a full license, just a basic promise that they won't sue. It's also claimed that this is 'voluntary' but the Warner Music guy says that they need to include all universities and all ISPs to really make it work. It's basically a music tax, where the recording industry gets to sit back and collect money."
